Head coach Patrick Roy, shown behind the Colorado Avalanche bench during the team’s game at Rogers Arena against the Vancouver Canucks on Dec. 8, 2013, has orchestrated a remarkable resurgence of his team, sprinkled as it is with young, albeit highly drafted, players.

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DENVER — One of the few things the Colorado Avalanche and Vancouver Canucks had in common coming into this season was that each team changed coaches after the last one.

The Avalanche, under Joe Sakic's new management, coaxed iconic alumnus Patrick Roy back to the National Hockey League after Colorado finished last in the Western Conference and missed the playoffs last spring for the fourth time in five years.

The Canucks beat the Avalanche and everyone else in the Northwest Division all five of those years. But with a lineup going stale, general manager Mike Gillis hoped to re-energize his team and make it tougher in the playoffs by hiring John Tortorella to coach.

The impact of these moves, obviously in combination with other factors, could scarcely have contrasted more.

Based on last season's winning percentage pro-rated to a full 82-game season, the Canucks would have finished 34 points head of the Avalanche — 101 to 67. Even after Wednesday’s 5-2 win against the Minnesota Wild, the Canucks head into tonight's game against the Avalanche (6 p.m., Sportsnet Pacific, Team 1040) trailing them by 18 points. The Avalanche, under coach-of-the-year favourite Roy, are on pace to dust the Canucks by 23 points this season.

Yes, that means a whopping swing of 67 points in one year, an inconceivable change in the balance of power between two teams whose rivalry a decade ago was once one of the fiercest in the NHL.

Such instant and dramatic reversals of fortune hardly seem possible. But with Roy in charge in Colorado, anything seems possible.

“I'm not surprised at all,” Canucks winger Alex Burrows said after Wednesday's game. “The way he had handled the Remparts in Quebec (major junior) the last seven years — I've got a lot of friends in that league and I knew his assistant coach — they're really structure guys who know how to break down a system and have been working with young players a long time. They brought that system to Colorado and their young guys are really buying into it.”

The Canucks, who went 15-0-2 against the Avalanche between Nov. 1, 2009 and April 13, 2013, need a win tonight to maintain their slight hope of making the playoffs.

The Avalanche has all but mathematically secured its Stanley Cup tournament spot and is trying to earn home-ice advantage for Round 1.

“He seems like a great fit for their team,” veteran Daniel Sedin, who faced Roy as a player, said of the Colorado coach. “It's a young team that he's got buying into everything he wants. That's all you can ask for as a coach. If you have everyone buying in, you're going to have a good team.

“I thought they'd have a lot of firepower up front (but) thought their weakness might be on defence. But it seems like they're not letting in a lot of goals and are playing well defensively. He has made them into five-man units defensively.”

Behind a defence that includes Andre Benoit and Nick Holden and Tyson Barrie, Avalanche goalie Semyon Varlamov is an emerging star — the player the Avalanche hoped he would become when it surrendered first- and second-round draft picks to get him from the Washington Capitals in 2011.

It helps that Varlamov's team often has the puck in the offensive zone. Colorado has a pile of excellent, young, fast forwards. Their roster includes five 20-goal scorers, headlined by Canadian Olympian Matt Duchene, 23, former Calder Trophy winner Gabriel Landeskog, 21, and rookie-of-the-year candidate Nathan MacKinnon, 18.

“I don't know his style,” Tortorella said of Roy. “I know they're one of the quickest teams I've seen. I know there's some enthusiasm with the kids. It's a really good team. We know that going in. We just need to get there and try to play our game.”

• PLAYERS TO WATCH:

Canucks: G Eddie Lack is expected to make his 15th straight start. He has allowed four goals in his last three games after struggling initially in the wake of the Roberto Luongo trade.

Avalanche: Apparently Colorado knew what it was doing when it bypassed D Seth Jones at the June draft for dynamic C Nathan MacKinnon, whose 55 points would easily lead the Canucks.

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